Practically speaking, and tapping into students' enthusiasm for tangible results, Liguori said, "It's a project that ties it all together."

The launch site consisted of a plastic tarp on a ball field and the tail-gate of a hatchback.

A helium tank was wheeled up. Over the course of 15 minutes, the metal vessel wheezed its contents into the white bag.

A trio of wranglers held the ropes taut and fought wind gusts. They wore latex gloves to protect the balloon's delicate skin from the weakening effects of body oils.

"Unique and cool"

The lift-off brought the Essex crew into the company of like-minded tinkerers worldwide: 290 teams in 47 countries have registered for expeditions, according to the Global Space Balloon Challenge website.

The challenge is the brainchild of students of aerospace engineering at Stanford University — champions of low-cost citizen science.

The group offers prizes for teams that "go beyond traditional high altitude ballooning and do something unique and cool."

The Essex crew aimed for photographic coolness.

Somewhere, over the radar

To get there, said junior Seth Elkins, they had to calculate how their gear, housed in a Styrofoam cooler nicknamed "George," might survive some crazy weather.

The onboard GPS system's stability system, a gimbal designed by students and printed on a 3-D printer, worked like a charm.

Video and still-camera images survived the voyage — although one of the cameras seems to have bitten the dust, Liguori said.

Hand-warmer packets kept the student-programmed Arduino microprocessor sufficiently toasty. The system had been field-tested down to -10 degrees in the school's freezer, Liguori noted.

A foot-wide, aluminum foil-lined radar reflector, mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration and attached like a kite's tail, apparently warned other aircraft from coming too close.

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Going up: A high-altitude helium balloon soars above Essex Junction on Wednesday, launched by high school students at the Center for Technology, Essex.(Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)

George vanishes

Glitches in the flight added up to mere inconvenience, reported Steven Herr, the computer animation and web page design instructor who co-piloted the near-space project.

As expected, the ground control team lost track of the balloon at higher altitudes: Civilian-grade GPS devices are designed for terrestrial use, Herr said.

The sensor that monitored atmospheric pressure seized up when temperatures sank to minus-30 degrees — and with it, the trigger for a heating element designed to sever the balloon's connection with the cargo at 95,000 feet.